


Purposeful Pain

by keithkolame



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood, Depressed Lucifer Morningstar, F/M, Hurt Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV), Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Insecure Lucifer, Insecure Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV), Sad Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV), Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Triggers, suicidal Lucifer, trigger warning, tw
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:07:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26183152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keithkolame/pseuds/keithkolame
Summary: Set after that one ep in s2 where he stands in front of that doctor and tries to get shot by the sniper, doesn’t quite follow canon, more like a conversation that happens once they get back to the precinct afterwards. Then Chloe discovers something Lucifer would have rather kept a secret. Can't decide if I want this to become multi-chaptered or if I should just leave it as a one-shot. Let me know if you like it/want more!
Relationships: Chloe Decker & Lucifer Morningstar, Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar
Comments: 15
Kudos: 147





	1. Chapter 1

When Lucifer realizes he can feel real, physical pain, something in him snaps. He still thinks about the pain from the first bullet, the Detective’s bullet; searing and all-exhuming and overwhelming. He could focus on nothing but the pain of being shot, and that’s what made him seek it out whenever he could. But it only worked when he was with Chloe.

Sometimes he’d excuse himself and go to the bathroom and try to burn the skin off of his arm with a lighter. It still healed quickly and left no scar, but the pain lasted longer if he hung around the Detective. A few times he’d pierced his skin with a knife hidden up his sleeve while he was next to her, but it felt wrong. It hurt like hell the closer he was, and he loved it in a sick twisted way, but he couldn’t do it with her right there. 

That was before he killed his brother. He had already tried having that sniper take him out, but the idiot didn’t even shoot him. He figured going back to hell and being tortured for eternity was the only valid punishment, but he had to be near Chloe when he did it. He was ready to take it to a whole other level now to get the punishment he deserved. He was going to take care of this himself.

“Lucifer? Lucifer?” Detective Decker pulled him out of his thoughts with a concerned expression on her face. “Are you okay? You look… like you’re in pain?” 

“Ah, aren’t I always?” Lucifer remarked, plastering a practiced grin on his face. 

“You can talk to me, you know,” said Chloe. “We never finished our conversation earlier. Why did you do that, really? You said you didn’t care about the doctor. Why would you ask him to shoot you? You could’ve been killed.”

Lucifer remained silent. 

“Unless you…did you… did you really want to get killed?” Chloe asked slowly. 

Lucifer kept his mouth shut, averting his eyes, afraid that any answer would give away his true intentions. She’d suggested it at the crime scene, but had brushed it off, not believing that Lucifer would do such a thing.

“The way you talked to him afterwards. Like you were angry at him for not shooting. Lucifer, talk to me. Please.”

“Oh, but what about? It doesn’t matter anyway; you wouldn’t believe a word I said. I’m just a fraud, right? Shouldn’t’ve been born in the first place. The least favorite son. Ha!” 

“Lucifer, you can’t really feel that way-” Chloe began.

“Well, why not?” Lucifer cut her off. “It’s the truth after all! All I do is hurt people, that’s all I’m good for. It’s all I’ll ever be good for! What am I even still doing here?”

He stalked off before Chloe had a chance to reply. She ran after him out the double doors of the precinct, but when she got outside, he had disappeared. Chloe went looking for him, but he was nowhere. Not at Lux, not with Linda nor Maze. 

He reappeared the next day as if nothing had happened, his usual cocky grin resting on his face.   
As Chloe gave him the rundown about their current case, Lucifer needed something to focus his thoughts back to the matter at hand or he thought he’d explode. He dug the knife he had in his sleeve into his arm, pushing it back with the same hand in his wrist. He did it several times, but it wasn’t working like usual. He pushed it in further. Pain. And a lot of blood, apparently.

“Lucifer? You’re bleeding, what the hell?!” Chloe jumped up out of her chair and immediately went to roll up Lucifer’s sleeve. 

Lucifer jumped away as if she’d burned him. 

“No, no. It’s quite alright. Just an old wound that reopened. I’ll go take care of it,” he said, rushing away into a nearby hallway. He turned into a darkened stairwell and rolled up his sleeve, taking in the sight of a still-bleeding wound on his arm. It was deep and blood poured from it, beginning to pool beneath him. Oh Dad, now what had he done? The bleeding usually stopped rather quickly, but then again, he didn’t usually go that deep. His gaze was pulled away from his arm when he heard a gasp.

“Lucifer? What happened? What is this?” 

It was Chloe. He cursed under his breath. He really should’ve gone somewhere she couldn’t have followed him. Idiot. 

“Oh, um, you know, just a- incident. Not a big deal at all. Just a little scratch,” he stuttered out. 

“Lucifer, those look fresh. And it’s not just one. Not a big deal? I don’t buy that. That’s a lot of blood. Don’t lie to me.”

“I would never lie to you, Detective. Pain is nothing I can’t handle. I’m uh… level with me for a second here, Detective, okay? Say that you’re the devil and you realize that you can feel physical pain for the first time since you’ve come to earth. No, you know what? That won’t work. How are you to put yourself in my shoes? After all, you’re a saint and I’m, well, the devil himself.”

“Are you saying… are you saying you did this yourself?” 

Lucifer didn’t know what to do but stay silent. He would lie but that was unbecoming of him. He never lied. 

“You weren’t trying to…” Chloe trailed off. 

“No, no!” Lucifer insisted. “Not this time at least,” he muttered under his breath. 

“What do you mean not this time?! You’ve done this before? How many times? You’ve tried to kill yourself before?” Chloe asked frantically. 

“Of course, not that it worked before meeting you. Now that I’m vulnerable, I’m sure I’ll succeed any day now. And I’ve being doing it since I found out I can feel real pain, of course. It’s addicting, truly. More so than any drug I’ve tried. I can see why so many of you humans love to torture yourselves, now. Not that anyone on earth could have committed atrocities even close to what I’ve done.”

“You- I’m- Lucifer… you can’t just…” Chloe stuttered, trying to get a full sentence out but failing. 

“Oh what? The wound. It’ll heal.”

“What about when it doesn’t? What about when you go too deep or really get yourself shot? I’ve seen you try it several times. When you goaded that rookie into shooting you, only to disappear. You knew exactly what you were doing. What happens then?” Chloe asked, breathless and with tears in her eyes. 

“What happens is I die. I finally get what I deserve. And then I go to hell to be tortured in the place I once ruled for all of eternity. What happens is that you, my dear, don’t have to deal with me anymore. It’s what you must want, right? Who wouldn’t after spending so much time with me? Being around me is hell on earth. Trust me, I would know. The world would be a much, much better place without me. You would be better off.”

“No, Lucifer. You don’t get to do that. You don’t just get to leave or to tell me that I would be better off if you were dead. What could possibly make you think that? I’ve been worried sick about you and rightfully so. You have to believe me when I say that I don’t want you gone. And you are not evil. You do not deserve this. You don’t deserve the emotions that are eating away at you. You don’t deserve any of it,” Chloe finished. 

The emotion in her eyes looked alarmingly like true compassion. Worry. Fear. He questioned why anyone would feel these things about him but was caught off guard when she pulled him in for a bone-breaking hug. When she pulled away and he looked in her eyes, he really almost believed her. But he couldn’t shake the hatred that he felt. 

“Well now that I’m done being dramatic, shall we get back to work? Sorry for oversharing a bit. It won’t happen again.”

“You weren’t being-“ she sighed. “This is serious. I don’t want you to die, Lucifer. If you went off and killed yourself tonight, I would feel responsible. You know that, right?”

“Well there goes tonight’s plans,” he said. Upon seeing the look on Chloe’s face he quickly added, “I’m kidding. Kidding. Mostly.”

“What am I going to do with you?” Chloe sighed, raking her hands through her hair.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the nice comments telling me to continue!! Honestly why do I never plan my fics out before I write them? Now I just gotta go with whatever I wrote in the first chapter. This story just isn’t really gonna discuss canon storylines too much cause I’m too lazy and I just wanna write. there'll be at least one more chapter dont worry.

Chloe tried to bring up what they had discussed again later in the day, but it was useless. She had considered calling his therapist, just because it felt like the right thing to do. And because she would really rather not find Lucifer dead somewhere. 

“Lucifer? Can we just talk about what happened? It’s kind of important,” Chloe urged.

“You think I’m important!” Lucifer laughed. “You’re funny, Detective. Now, can we focus on the task at hand, hm? The case?”

“You are important. I’m scared you’re going to do something, Lucifer. I feel like I can’t just do nothing. Have you discussed this with your therapist?”

“Well not explicitly. You’re welcome to bring it up but what’s she going to do? Lock me up? Put the devil in a mental institution?” said Lucifer, laughing.

“If that’s what needs to be done, yes,” Chloe replied, crossing her arms. 

“You know I can talk myself out of any situation, Detective. You don’t have any proof to back your claims.”

“What about your arm?” Chloe said indignantly. 

“That won’t work, it’s probably nearly healed already. Supernatural healing, remember?”

“Lucifer, I swear to God.”

“Well there’s no need to bring Him into this. Look, Detective. It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m going to have to go back to hell at some point. Might as well make things easier for everyone and just off myself before one of my brothers comes to do it for me. My time on earth is done. I’m tired of hurting everyone around me,” sighed Lucifer. 

“I can’t even begin to guess what you mean about your brothers, but what I do know is that I’m not letting you go. You don’t hurt everyone around you. I need you. I need my partner. You can’t abandon me,” Chloe practically begged, launching herself at Lucifer for a hug.

Humans and their hugs. He did feel guilty. Had he really made her care about him? Were his charms suddenly working on her? 

“No, your charms aren’t working on me, Lucifer. I care because I like you. I like having you as much partner and my friend. It breaks my heart that you only assume I care because you have me under some sort of spell,” Chloe said. 

“Oh, did I say that last bit out loud? My bad. But I can’t imagine any other reason that you’d like spending time with me. I mean, I’m unbearable. I’m obnoxious, you’ve said it yourself. That’s why no one hangs around for long,” Lucifer replied, surprised by how many of his emotions he was continuously spilling the past few days. 

It’s like a tap had been opened since the day Chloe had insisted he tell her why he put himself in the sniper's path. He told himself that he wouldn’t talk about this anymore. He could see that he really was worrying the Detective. She did save lives as part of her job, after all. But when she’d asked him about it again, he couldn’t help but keep talking about it. It’s like the hatred for himself was crawling up his throat, begging to let everyone see it. He couldn’t think about anything else. Not anymore. 

“Please, promise me you won’t do anything to hurt yourself.”

Lucifer wanted to argue but felt responsible for the worry clear on the Detective’s face. 

“Fine. I’m sorry to worry you. I won’t do anything, okay? I know you have much more important things to worry about, like the case. In fact, it has been incredibly selfish of me to even discuss my issues while you’re so busy. I’m fine and I will deal with it.”

“Have you heard anything I’ve been saying to you at all? I don’t want you to deal with it alone. I want you to come for me for help. Or just to talk to someone, anyone. You can’t keep it inside all the time. And you can’t just bleed out your problems either,” Chloe lectured. 

“Right, well, it’s different for me. I thought leaving hell would solve my problems, but it seems to have just made me realize how many I actually have.”

Chloe secretly vowed to bring up what was going on with Lucifer to his therapist. She would have to do something, right? He’s a danger to himself. But Lucifer is such a smooth talker, like he said. He could practically get out of anything. What made this any different?

“How can I convince you that you matter? That you are good? That I care about you?”

“You can’t convince me of something that isn’t true! Now can we please get back to the case? I already promised I wasn’t going to do anything. I tend to keep my promises.”

When Chloe got home, it was late, but maybe not too late to call Lucifer’s therapist and ask what the hell she should do. She was worried about Lucifer and had almost wanted to follow him home, but made a few jabs about her wanting to sleep with him and plus she had Trixie. And he promised. So she let him be for now. Linda answered after the first ring and after listening to her for only a minute, she insisted that they go to Lucifer’s place. 

“Patients often try to harm themselves after they confide in someone. They often feel embarrassed. I just think we should check on him,” Linda said. 

“I’ll meet you there in 10,” said Chloe, before hanging up. 

Lucifer locked the door to the stairs and held the lift at his floor. No one was getting into his apartment. He grabbed a bottle and chugged it. He felt disgust and hatred towards himself wash over him. Then he felt disgust toward his father, for doing this to him. But he knew the truth. God may have casted him into hell, but he had done most of the bad things all on his own. He had Azriel’s blade, meaning Chloe didn’t have to be here. 

He walked to his balcony, gazing over the edge. He thought that this might be a nice way to die if falling from a height could kill him. Even if Chloe were there, falling from a height wouldn’t cause him to cease to exist. But Lucifer saw now that he had to use the blade. He should be wiped out from existence. It’s the only way. Even if he selfishly just didn’t want to feel the pain of hell for all eternity, this was still fitting. Uriel died like this, so now he must too. 

“Lucifer! Step away from the edge. Please.”

It was Chloe. He didn’t turn around. Now that she was here he could just fall and send himself to hell. He did deserve the punishment after all. He considered it briefly, inching closer to the ledge and stepping up onto it.

“Lucifer, stop! Don’t do this.”

Ah, so Linda was here, too. He slipped the blade into his suit and turned to greet his guests, remaining on the ledge. 

“Glad you’ve come! Now I get a choice, hell or nothingness! isn’t this interesting?”


End file.
